ST. THOMAS VOLUNTEER PROGRAM WORTH EMULATING

IT IS, PERHAPS, a misnomer to call St. Thomas Aquinas High School's experiment in service a "volunteer program."

The students, after all, must participate whether they want to or not. They are required to give 20 hours of "volunteer" service a year.

Some help the handicapped or the elderly. Some work in hospitals and others in nursing homes.

The idea is to raise the consciousness of the students to the plight of others in their community.

St. Thomas students Joni and Julie Mayhill decided this year that they wanted to teach children, particularly the handicapped, to swim. Their mother, Marilyn Mayhill, coordinator for the Broward County Volunteer Action Center, helped to organize the school's mandatory volunteer program.

But even having such an involved mother didn't prevent Joni and Julie from having initial doubts about the program. Once involved, however, they caught the spirit. Pushed into helping at the Jack and Jill Nursery, they grew to like it so much that they continued on their own volition during the summer.

Christie Gray, another St. Thomas student, founded Students Together Over Poverty, a student group dedicated to helping people in poverty-stricken neighborhoods. She also plays the violin to entertain the residents of a Plantation nursing home.

Sister John Norton, principal of St. Thomas, deserves credit for coming up with the idea, which she said was inspired by articles in education journals.

"Young people tend to have a great deal and we don't get young people involved in things outside themselves, developing the whole person," she said. The same, of course, could be said for adults.

The real value in the St. Thomas program is that it will raise the consciousness of future adults who perhaps will be more attuned to the community's problems and will be more willing than some of their parents to help.

The St. Thomas program would be great for all schools, but the mandatory aspects of it probably could not be applied to the public schools. Public schools, however, could adopt similar aims and do more to encourage their students to participate as volunteers in community programs.

St. Thomas is to be commended for its service program. The students - and the community - will be much the better for it, now and in the future.